Orthodox Judaism

Shalom!

I am Rabbi Jonathan Ginsberg. I am going to do a series on the various denominations, their strengths and their weaknesses from my perspective. I was educated first at an orthodox school on the South side of Chicago but I was raised by a non-orthodox parents. If I had an opportunity to study orthodoxy, and there are certainly wonderful things about it and some reasons why I am not orthodox. I am not orthodox first, because they do not let women participate fully in Jewish life. They believe that women cannot be witnesses in Jewish documents. Some orthodox believe you can not even hear a woman sing. They do not let women in a mignon mix with men by a large read Torah, (foreign language), lead services. They segregate women from men in prayer, and for some reason they believe that all of that is reasonable.

Now, I understand through most of Jewish history that was like it is today, but of course through most of world history, women could not own property, could not vote, there has been a huge mind shift enabling women to participate fully in the life of a democracy, and so Judaism is moved definitely in that direction too, so that all denominations of Judaism now allow women to be Rabbis, to sign documents, participate fully in Jewish life except for orthodoxy. I think it is absurd, there is no reason that women should be separated in prayer. You can see the Muslims do that today. The Christians did that. There is no evidence we did it, in fact, ancient synagogues have no evidence that men and women were separated. We probably borrowed that from the Christians and the Muslims so it is a foreign innovation in Judaism and just, it is absurd. The fact that women should not be allowed to be witnesses. For a long time, women were not allowed to study Talmud and still are not in various circles. The prayer book still for the orthodox has a sense, thank you for not making me a woman. Now, they explain it by saying that the categories there of people that have less commandments are things that we should be grateful for that man had more commandments. I do not believe in that idea that some women should be, not have the same commandments that men should have, so it is one reason I could never be orthodox. Secondly, I really believe that orthodoxy does not have a correct understanding of the development of Jewish law. You can see changes in the Torah itself, like in various, there are many stories where the law changes in the Torah. You could see in the whole Talmudic process that the Rabbis understood and interpreted.

Now the orthodox to that would say, will the Rabbis and the Talmud were closer to revelation; they are much wiser than we are. And one of the famous lines that we have is that a pygmy standing on the shoulder of giant sees further than a giant did. But things have always changed in Jewish law. There are many classic Midrashim which explain it. For example, one Rabbi is arguing and he has evidence from God by miracles that his way is right, the majority of Rabbis still argue against him. Another Midrash says that Moses wanted to see what was going on, in the time of Rabbi Akiva, and so God took Moses to sit in the back of Rabbi Akiva’s (foreign language) and Moses is paying attention and he really does not understand what Rabbi Akiva is talking about, then finally, Rabbi Akiva traces the law back to Moses and Moses understood that. It is clear that things have always developed organically and they have to, to survive. In our equity of orthodoxy is that once the (foreign language) was written in 1600, then Judaism really ossified.

On the other hand, orthodoxy is incredibly vital. The synagogues are full, people attend services, they take Judaism seriously, they follow the Mitzvah, and there is joy and beauty and seriousness of intent and much more so than the other denominations. And so you have the beauty of orthodoxy with some of the challenges, where some of the issues that we find problematic. We wish that we could blend the two. There is also a kind of arrogance amongst some orthodox, believing it is their way or the high way. They have the only correct form of Judaism and they look down on other branches of Judaism. It borders on I think (foreign language); the great sin of sisters and caused this hatred. But again, you have to balance it. There is good and bad and everything and there is much beauty and the honesty and the integrity and the desire and the fervency and the love that orthodoxy brings to Judaism. So the good and the bad, like in everything is.


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